Coalition unites behind balanced approach for state budget

Belt-tightening in both good and bad times is starving the state’s future, particularly when it comes to health care and education, according to a new coalition that formed to educate lawmakers “as to what Texas people need and want.”

Austere budgets have ruled the day in recent years when economic hard times influenced Texas lawmakers to cut billions from the state budget, including $5.3 billion last year needed to keep public education on pace with enrollment growth.

Texas remains “at the bottom of the barrel” when it comes to providing services for it’s citizens, said Eileen Garcia, whose organization, Texans Care for Children, is a member of Texas Forward.

“We are not a poor state,” Garcia said earlier today. “We need a balanced approach. It just can’t be about cuts.”

The group consisting of dozens of organizations, including Children’s Defense Fund – Texas, LULAC Texas, Methodist Healthcare Ministries, Christian Life Commission Baptist General Convention of Texas, League of Women Voters, Texas State Teachers Association, Texas AFT – oppose the stockpiling of billions of dollars in the state’s Rainy Day Fund. They support tax reform to generate additional revenue by making all business sectors pay their fair share.

“In Texas, we live within our means and don’t spend money we don’t have,” Havens said. “Each session, legislators are required to write a balanced budget that not only meets growing needs of Texas students, but contends with an unsustainable Medicaid program that accounts for 25 percent of general revenue.

“In fact, during Gov. Perry’s tenure, public education spending has risen by billions of dollars and at nearly five times the rate of enrollment,” Havens said. “The governor is committed to the conservative principles of restrained spending, low taxes, a strong rainy day fund and a skilled workforce that allow employers to create jobs and opportunities for Texans to take care of themselves and their families.”

Critics note that increased education spending does not take into account the huge increase in the number of low-income students now filling public schools. Those students are more expensive to educate.

The number of low-income children has increased by 1.1 million since Perry became governor, and low income students now make up slightly more than 60 percent of the public school enrollment.

“I think we can all agree that the success of Texas is critically dependent on both health and education,” said Dr. Stephen Pont, a pediatrician at the Dell Children’s Medical Center. “They are critically linked. Healthy students do better in school.”

An uneducated work force results in low wages and often means no health insurance.

Texas leads the nation with 25 percent of its population lacking health insurance,” Dr. Dan Stultz, president and CEO of the Texas Hospital Association said during a media briefing.

The state’s ever-growing Medicaid costs help cover some 3.5 million low income Texans, about 75 percent of whom are children, Stultz said.

Texans should not have to choose between education and health care or any other public service, Montserrat Garibay of Education Austin said: “This is a matter of whether our officials will make children a priority.”